With 35 years of experience, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) is a leader in the prevention and treatment of pediatric HIV. As a Foundation, we understand the importance of project management to ensure and reinforce our commitment to technical and operational excellence. Established in 2015, EGPAF’s Project Management Office (PMO) provides in-person and virtual Project Management for Development Professionals (Project DPro) trainings and certifications to EGPAF staff, implementing partners, donors, and ministry partners. These trainings provide the EGPAF community and our stakeholders with a foundational understanding of project management tools and language that make work easier.

These efforts are possible through EGPAF’s valuable partnership and appreciated long-standing collaboration with PM4NGOs, which began in 2014 and continues to date. This partnership has provided valuable insight and connections to EGPAF’s PMO while also allowing EGPAF to share innovative, participant-informed developments, such as our annual all-organizational survey, with the project management community.

Implementing excellent, meticulous, and engaging trainings is one of the PMO’s many talents. EGPAF developed a knowledgeable team of in-house trainers through three intensive training of trainers (TOT) series from 2018-2022, with an upcoming TOT planned for 2024. As a result of these successful TOTs, internally certified EGPAF expert trainers have the skills and practical experience to provide high-quality project management training across the organization and to key external stakeholders in multiple languages.

To date, EGPAF has provided nearly 30 in-person Project DPro trainings and six virtual trainings to over 900 individuals across 11 countries. In-person trainings takes 40 hours of synchronous learning over the course of five days, and virtual trainings require 40 hours of synchronous and asynchronous learning over seven weeks. Both formats conclude with participants taking the PM4NGOs certification exam. EGPAF is thrilled to report an 87% certification rate- the cumulative certification rate for in-house Project DPro trainings during 2023 was an astounding 95%, with the last in-person training in Malawi showing a 100% certification rate.

EGPAF’s PMO approaches trainings in three phases: Planning and preparation, implementation, and follow-up communication and support. The PMO works with identified planning focal points for several months before the training begins to ensure that logistics like venue identification, printing, travel, and trainer preparation is completed well in advance. Furthermore, the PMO liaises with leadership and technical experts to identify and prioritize any specific project management tools and concepts, and receive specific country needs and examples, to incorporate into that tailored Project DPro training. Not only does this meet the needs of a particular group of stakeholders, but it also supports the conceptual understanding of the project management technical materials while grounding the theory in real-life experiences and examples.

During the implementation of the Project DPro curricula, EGPAF’s expert trainers deliver project management content while incorporating numerous, organization-specific hands-on workshops for participants to gain experience utilizing each project management tool. Trainers lead a variety of engaging daily review sessions to assess and support project management content comprehension and understanding.

After the conclusion of the training, the PMO provides follow-up communication and support. Best practices from years of training implementation, combined with detailed feedback from post-training evaluations are documented and incorporated into training materials for EGPAF’s expert trainers to reference. This iterative process allows the PMO to continuously incorporate feedback and lessons learned from facilitation into the training materials and delivery.

EGPAF’s PMO is deeply committed to project management trainings and providing technical assistance. We always welcome further discussion around the continued improvement and refinement of project management trainings, and please do not hesitate to reach out to EGPAF’s PMO at PMO@pedaids.org.